5 Days to a Flatter Stomach

Also by Monica Grenfell

Fabulous in a Fortnight

Monica's Fabulous Body Plan: Fantastic Legs & Thighs

Monica's Fabulous Body Plan: Best Bust, Arms and Back

Monica's Fabulous Body Plan: Marvelous Midriff

Monica's Fabulous Body Plan: Beautiful Bottom

Beat Your Body Chaos

Cellulite Buster: The 30-Day Diet

The New Get Back Into Your Jeans Diet

Copyright

Neither this nor any other program should be followed without first consulting a health care professional. If you have any special conditions requiring attention, you should consult with your health care professional regularly regarding possible modification of the program contained in this book.

Copyright © 2005 by Monica Grenfell

Previously published in the U.K. by Pan Macmillan

All rights reserved.

Warner Books, Inc.

Hachette Book Group

237 Park Avenue

New York, NY 10017

Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com

First eBook Edition: October 2009

ISBN: 978-0-446-56929-3

To my sister Shelagh

foreword

Hello, I am Monica Grenfell and this is my 5 DAYS TO A FLATTER STOMACH.

How much do you really want a flatter stomach? Maybe you have been fighting the battle for years as you embark on yet another diet and shell out for gym memberships. Things go well for a while and you lose weight. But your stomach stays stubbornly bloated and uncomfortable, as if some bloat-beast decides to visit, just when you least expected him. How can this happen when you have done all the right things, like exercising and cutting calories?

If all this sounds uncomfortably familiar, you have come to the right place – because I had a serious relationship with the bloat-beast for years. The fact that I beat it is the reason for this book.

Every night for ten years, I squeezed myself into a skintight leotard and leggings and stood in front of 100 pairs of critical eyes as I taught exercise classes. When people are gazing at your stomach, thighs, arms and any other bits which might be flapping in the breeze, night after night, year after year, you learn a few tricks. I dreaded a bloated stomach. My day revolved around making sure it was flat by evening. And this was quite a task. I do not teach fitness these days, but as a qualified nutritionist, I know that the stomach area is the most hated area of the body. You are probably in despair over the bloating, discomfort, and sheer size, in comparison with the rest of your body. I am sure you work hard at it and, believe me, I understand how you feel. After two children (one caesarean) and a couple of stomach operations, not to mention the fact that I am not as young as I was, it is quite a feat to have a flat stomach. But I have, and it is entirely due to this program, which I have developed over many years.

A great body is worth working for. Never believe the doom-mongers who say you can't hope to have a good figure after babies or a flat stomach after forty. You can. The 5-Day program is an amalgamation of all I have learned. I know you are going to be delighted with it and will want to follow the program into the future.

Good luck, and never despair. You can do it!

—Monica Grenfell

introduction

Every woman wants a flat stomach.

Whether or not you champion voluptuous curves, a womanly bottom or a statuesque bosom, nobody wants a big stomach. The success of the first edition of my program prompted this new version, brought up to date but still containing all the elements that made it a hit first time around. A few tricks of the trade, an amazing diet and a good 5-point program to help you manage that stomach for the rest of your life.

So what brings you here? Maybe you have a food intolerance or have been transformed by your pregnancies. Are you bloated beyond what is tolerable? Do you eat because you are happy, or comfort-eat because you are sad? It is a shame to be dissatisfied with your life. You can spend a fortune on designer labels and fill your bathroom with expensive cosmetics, but these just paper over the cracks. If only you felt completely confident about your body, you could pull on a pair of old jeans and everyone would admire you. But if you feel fat or bloated you can dress from head to toe in Chanel and still feel awful inside.

Diets do work

Diets don't work if you stop doing them. To explain why you gain weight again after a diet, look at this analogy: a footballer keeps suffering from a knee injury; his playing style is analyzed and he is told that he is running and kicking the wrong way. He goes for an operation and is out of the game for six months. He comes back and plays the same way as before, in the same shoes and on the same surfaces. Guess what—the injury comes back.

If you do the same things in the same way, you will get the same results. If your old ways made you pile on the pounds, what can you expect if you go back to doing what you did before?

But you have to be sensible. Men don't fall for your fat ratio. Friends can't see your weight. Serving yourself with fat-free alternatives like a second-class citizen while the rest of the family eats the real thing isn't necessary, and on this diet you won't be doing it. I don't want a diet to be so different and quirky from normal life that you draw attention to yourself. For the first time I have taken the stress out of slimming and brought back reality. Reality means food people really want to eat. Reality means not having to spend ten minutes packing your gym bag with equipment and changing into special gear just to go and exercise. Reality means admitting that we don't want to just eat mounds of protein.

5 DAYS –
are you
SERIOUS?

Of course I am serious!

It takes just five days to settle that stomach and lose excess fluids. In only five days your muscles can be more toned and supple than they have felt for years. The diet is safe and probably healthier than you have eaten for a while. The program takes you into the future and the work will have to be kept up, but the possibilities will delight you:

For example, you have probably been told to do the following:

eat breakfast like a king, have a filling lunch, and a small dinner

eat plenty of fruit and vegetables

eat nothing after 6 p.m.

start the day with a good breakfast

nibble on dried fruit for energy

drink diet drinks instead of the sugary versions

cut fat

use low-sugar versions of desserts and sweets.

But on the 5-Day program you will do the following:

eat four small snacks during the day

eat most food after 6 p.m.

eat normal-fat foods, like butter and cheese

avoid fruit and few vegetables during the day

have no dried fruit, except a few prunes or apricots in the evening

eliminate carbonated and diet drinks

use no artificial sweeteners.

Those are some big changes!

Yes, but you will love them. The biggest blocks to starting something new are fear, skepticism and idleness. Fear that doing something new will disrupt your routine, skepticism because you have tried so many things and they didn't work, and idleness – well, we are all idle about something. Suddenly a year has gone by and you realize you never made that telephone call, wrote that letter or started that diet. But what's the bottom line in all this? Having a flatter stomach. It's why you bought this book. You want it more than anything else, so don't let a few old habits get in the way.

The Grenfell Philosophy

Feeling happy and confident about your figure is your pathway to success. I truly believe this. People who struggle to be slim, even if they profess not to care, are rarely happy and confident inside. They will often try to buy their way to happiness, with designer labels, extravagant shoes and expensive beauty treatments.

Being is more important than having. My philosophy is that beauty is the entire effect, and all your clothes and make-up are nothing if you feel fat and unhealthy. Start with the underneath. Don't eat food that clogs your insides and don't pollute yourself with cigarettes and alcohol. What you are is more important than what you have, and if you are healthy, fit and glowing with confidence, you will attract people to you whether or not you are wearing designer clothes or drive a smart car.

And don't you want to give yourself an edge over others? It is not about looking like a celebrity or trying to copy your best friend. It is about presenting the best version of yourself. My simple 5-point program will help you to achieve this. It will help you to remind yourself of your goals and revisit them constantly. This is not about me telling you what to do or what to think; it is about you telling yourself what to do and think. You set your own goals and you decide how you are going to achieve them. The Grenfell program simply gives you the framework.

I devised the Grenfell philosophy from mastering my own mind-body connection. It has enabled me to stay the same weight and shape for more than thirty years. I can truly say that I have never gained a pound or increased my vital statistics in all that time, and this certainly is not down to luck. Like you, I have to work at it. Like you, I need a proper diet. I have my bottom line, which I repeat frequently—that I want to be healthy and confident. The reassuring point for you, I hope, is that it has not made me self-obsessed or manic about my weight—far from it. Once you have your program in place you will not be obsessed, because your body takes care of itself. You learn that beauty is the entire effect, nobody can see your weight and it is OK to have that chocolate.

It all starts here

You are probably a diet veteran and already have your eagle eyes peeled for the get-out clause. You're probably used to the scenario where you lose those vanity pounds only to have them creep back on in the following days or weeks. Well, this is not a fad and it isn't a con. This is the 5-Day promise:

You will:

banish bloating

lose inches from waist and abdomen

increase energy

sleep better

be more confident

feel healthier.

And the plus-side is that so much of this plan reintroduces foods that die-hard dieters thought were off the menu for good. Butter and cheese. Rice pudding and potatoes. Seasoned slimmers will have already shrunk from the idea, convinced that their weight will soar overnight and the whole thing will end in tears. But give it five days and I promise you'll be amazed.

Tried and tested

I have been putting clients through this program for years, but for the purposes of this book, I asked another 200 women who wanted to lose weight to try the plan.

None of the testers had any idea what the program was aiming to achieve, only that I was trialling a diet-and-exercise plan for a book. They all kept diaries for me, as I was interested not only in changes in their weight and improvement, but also in whether the meals worked, whether their families enjoyed them, and whether they could find the foods easily. It is no good suggesting a regime which puts people to endless trouble, or stipulating food that can't be taken to work.

The detailed responses of some of the team are contained in the next section (page 10). However, the diaries showed that:

all the testers lost weight

all the testers felt noticeably and pleasingly slimmer

all the testers had managed to give up any laxatives and stomach medicines they had been taking for flatulence, and were thrilled at how calming the diet was

all the testers said they could happily stick with the regime

all the testers said they were pleased and relieved to be able to eat "proper" food again – such as butter, eggs and cheese

nobody disliked the diet in any way.

I believe I cannot go better than the evidence of those 200 volunteers who put themselves through my 5-Day program and my grateful thanks go out to them all. Don't be skeptical. If such results can be achieved in only five days, think what you can achieve in a month!

Is This You? The Reasons People Don't Stick with a Diet

1 I don't see results quickly enough

Crash diets used to be a quick way of losing weight and cheering yourself up, but they gave you false hopes. If you lost six pounds in your first week, a three-pound loss the following week felt like failure. Only one and a half pounds lost the next time and you were nearly suicidal. Never mind that this is perfectly standard weight loss – to you it felt like total standstill. Why be hungry, you reasoned, when nothing was happening? Focusing only on the downside, you forgot that six pounds off was good in itself. "I should have lost fifteen pounds by now!" you moaned. Well, cheer up. The beauty of this diet is real inch loss. Seeing and feeling a real difference is a major psychological boost, which is why the 5-Day program is so popular. This is not a crash diet, but the results are swift.

2 I used to be slim and be able to lose weight easily – now I'm older, the weight just won't go. What's happening? It's not fair!

Look, I want to be ten years younger too, but it isn't going to happen. We all did a lot of things differently when we were younger and, yes, now you have to run hard just to stay in the same place. But I promise that once you get into the 5-Day program you'll be slim, vigorous and glad you made the effort.

Never mind what your age is, or that you've just had your fourth baby, or that operation. Even if you are eighty, you can lose weight. If you take hormone tablets or have thyroid malfunction or you are Type 1 diabetic, you can still lose weight. Feeling that you are somehow a "special" case is a cop-out. It's easy to blame circumstances for your not losing weight. If you start finding reasons why life used to be so much better, you'll never stop.

3 I reach a plateau and there doesn't seem to be any point

Yes, there is. Every scientific test I have ever seen has found that under strict conditions people lost weight at a continuous rate. There is no such thing as a plateau and everyone can lose the amount of weight they wish to lose – as long as they have excess body fat.

So take heart – you can lose those last ten pounds with the Grenfell Maintenance program.

4 I have to make one meal for myself and another for the rest of the family

My meals can be enjoyed by everyone. I don't use any low-calorie or low-fat alternatives, although some recipes are adapted to reduce thoughtless and liberal use of fattening ingredients. There is no need to treat yourself as a second-class citizen just because you want to lose weight. We all appreciate quality, and that means real butter, cheese and cream. As a guide, ask yourself what kind of dessert you would give to a guest. The lowest-calorie version or the richest? Many of the meals on this diet are standard favorites, which old and young alike can enjoy.

5 I feel hungry all the time

On this diet, you will be eating five or six times a day. The secret is to eat small amounts of food regularly. Ever woken at 3 a.m. feeling bright and wide awake, only to fall back to sleep and crawl out of bed in the morning feeling terrible? This is classic low blood sugar. My mid-evening snack gives you a restful sleep and you'll wake feeling refreshed.

6 I feel washed out and tired

Calorie-reduced or low-carbohydrate diets can make you very tired, as you are not putting any energy into your body. The 5-Day diet is completely different, because the staple daytime foods, while being light, are carbohydrates, and your daily intake of carbohydrate will be quite high. Your main meal, in particular, will be based on starchy carbohydrates, so you will feel energetic on the program.

7 I feel bloated on all that fruit and fiber

Fruit is meant to fill you. It contains fiber and water and it flushes out your system wonderfully. If you have a constipation problem, eat fruit. However, there is a problem, because much fruit contains sorbitol, a natural sweetener that can cause bloating. If your stomach feels lovely and flat in the morning but bloated by early evening and you have been eating fruit, you've found the culprit. On this diet, you will simply shift all that wonderful fruit to the evening, out of harm's way.

How You Will Succeed

You are probably dying to know the secret by now. Well, hold on a little longer while I explain the simple methods to achieving that flatter stomach by the end of the week.

Limited Choice

If your kitchen usually looks like a harvest festival the minute you start a new diet, with your fridge overflowing with fruits and vegetables, you are already on the way to failure. Stocking up on a huge variety of foods is a key to overeating, and scientific research has shown that when you are presented with a wide variety of choices, you will eat more.

The 5-Day program presents you with a few key foods as part of a greatly simplified diet. Any time you are faced with those all-you-can-eat buffets, go for just two or three items rather than a bit of everything.

Going Low – Sodium, That Is

Don't get me wrong – your body needs sodium. It's a mineral that helps the body regulate blood pressure. It's also needed for muscle and nerve function. But you only need around 500–1,000mg a day and that is the amount in one smoked sausage!

And if you want to put a stop to that bothersome bloating, don't dread the bread—the problem is more likely to be sodium overload. You see, salt stimulates the taste buds, making you want an opposing taste. The more salt you have, the more likely you are to want sugar. The more sugar you eat, the more you will crave something sharp, bitter or salty. Simple food takes some getting used to, but it is surely better to have a basic diet, say, during the week, if you know it will help to stop cravings. Save your all-out sushi night for a treat.

However, before you ban savory foods, be aware that there is also a lot of salt in sweet foods like chocolate and cereals.

There is more sodium in a cup of Raisin Bran cereal (486mg) than in a cup of dry-roasted peanuts (9mg).

So go and check out your pantry and read food labels: a low-sodium food contains no more than 140mg of sodium per serving.

These are all high in sodium:

table salt